That night there was excitement in the little hotel-world, first
because there was a _bal costumé_, but chiefly because the new snow had
come. And Hibbert went--felt drawn to go; he did not go in costume, but
he wanted to talk about the slopes and ski-ing with the other men, and
at the same time....
Ah, there was the truth, the deeper necessity that called. For the
singular connection between the stranger and the snow again betrayed
itself, utterly beyond explanation as before, but vital and insistent.
Some hidden instinct in his pagan soul--heaven knows how he phrased it
even to himself, if he phrased it at all--whispered that with the snow
the girl would be somewhere about, would emerge from her hiding place,
would even look for him.
Absolutely unwarranted it was. He laughed while he stood before the
little glass and trimmed his moustache, tried to make his black tie
sit straight, and shook down his dinner jacket so that it should lie
upon the shoulders without a crease. His brown eyes were very bright.
‘I look younger than I usually do,’ he thought. It was unusual, even
significant, in a man who had no vanity about his appearance and
certainly never questioned his age or tried to look younger than he
was. Affairs of the heart, with one tumultuous exception that left no
fuel for lesser subsequent fires, had never troubled him. The forces
of his soul and mind not called upon for ‘work’ and obvious duties, all
went to Nature. The desolate, wild places of the earth were what he
loved; night, and the beauty of the stars and snow. And this evening he
felt their claims upon him mightily stirring. A rising wildness caught
his blood, quickened his pulse, woke longing and passion too. But
chiefly snow. The snow whirred softly through his thoughts like white,
seductive dreams.... For the snow had come; and She, it seemed, had
somehow come with it--into his mind.
And yet he stood before that twisted mirror and pulled his tie and coat
askew a dozen times, as though it mattered. ‘What in the world is up
with me?’ he thought. Then, laughing a little, he turned before leaving
the room to put his private papers in order. The green morocco desk
that held them he took down from the shelf and laid upon the table.
Tied to the lid was the visiting card with his brother’s London address
‘in case of accident.’ On the way down to the hotel he wondered why he
had done this, for though imaginative, he was not the kind of man who
dealt in presentiments. Moods with him were strong, but ever held in
leash.
‘It’s almost like a warning,’ he thought, smiling. He drew his thick
coat tightly round the throat as the freezing air bit at him. ‘Those
warnings one reads of in stories sometimes...!’
A delicious happiness was in his blood. Over the edge of the hills
across the valley rose the moon. He saw her silver sheet the world of
snow. Snow covered all. It smothered sound and distance. It smothered
houses, streets, and human beings. It smothered--life.
V
In the hall there was light and bustle; people were already arriving
from the other hotels and châlets, their costumes hidden beneath many
wraps. Groups of men in evening dress stood about smoking, talking
‘snow’ and ‘ski-ing.’ The band was tuning up. The claims of the
hotel-world clashed about him faintly as of old. At the big glass
windows of the verandah, peasants stopped a moment on their way home
from the _café_ to peer. Hibbert thought laughingly of that conflict
he used to imagine. He laughed because it suddenly seemed so unreal.
He belonged so utterly to Nature and the mountains, and especially
to those desolate slopes where now the snow lay thick and fresh and
sweet, that there was no question of a conflict at all. The power of
the newly fallen snow had caught him, proving it without effort. Out
there, upon those lonely reaches of the moonlit ridges, the snow lay
ready--masses and masses of it--cool, soft, inviting. He longed for it.
It awaited him. He thought of the intoxicating delight of ski-ing in
the moonlight....
Thus, somehow, in vivid flashing vision, he thought of it while he
stood there smoking with the other men and talking all the ‘shop’ of
ski-ing.
And, ever mysteriously blended with this power of the snow, poured also
through his inner being the power of the girl. He could not disabuse
his mind of the insinuating presence of the two together. He remembered
that queer skating-impulse of ten days ago, the impulse that had let
her in. That any mind, even an imaginative one, could pass beneath
the sway of such a fancy was strange enough; and Hibbert, while fully
aware of the disorder, yet found a curious joy in yielding to it.
This insubordinate centre that drew him towards old pagan beliefs had
assumed command. With a kind of sensuous pleasure he let himself be
conquered.
And snow that night seemed in everybody’s thoughts. The dancing couples
talked of it; the hotel proprietors congratulated one another; it meant
good sport and satisfied their guests; every one was planning trips
and expeditions, talking of slopes and telemarks, of flying speed
and distance, of drifts and crust and frost. Vitality and enthusiasm
pulsed in the very air; all were alert and active, positive, radiating
currents of creative life even into the stuffy atmosphere of that
crowded ball-room. And the snow had caused it, the snow had brought
it; all this discharge of eager sparkling energy was due primarily to
the--Snow.
But in the mind of Hibbert, by some swift alchemy of his pagan
yearnings, this energy became transmuted. It rarefied itself, gleaming
in white and crystal currents of passionate anticipation, which he
transferred, as by a species of electrical imagination, into the
personality of the girl--the Girl of the Snow. She somewhere was
waiting for him, expecting him, calling to him softly from those
leagues of moonlit mountain. He remembered the touch of that cool,
dry hand; the soft and icy breath against his cheek; the hush and
softness of her presence in the way she came and the way she had gone
again--like a flurry of snow the wind sent gliding up the slopes.
She, like himself, belonged out there. He fancied that he heard her
little windy voice come sifting to him through the snowy branches of
the trees, calling his name ... that haunting little voice that dived
straight to the centre of his life as once, long years ago, two other
voices used to do....
But nowhere among the costumed dancers did he see her slender figure.
He danced with one and all, distrait and absent, a stupid partner
as each girl discovered, his eyes ever turning towards the door and
windows, hoping to catch the luring face, the vision that did not come
... and at length, hoping even against hope. For the ball-room thinned;
groups left one by one, going home to their hotels and châlets; the
band tired obviously; people sat drinking lemon-squashes at the little
tables, the men mopping their foreheads, everybody ready for bed.
It was close on midnight. As Hibbert passed through the hall to get his
overcoat and snow-boots, he saw men in the passage by the ‘sport-room,’
greasing their ski against an early start. Knapsack luncheons were
being ordered by the kitchen swing doors. He sighed. Lighting a
cigarette a friend offered him, he returned a confused reply to some
question as to whether he could join their party in the morning.
It seemed he did not hear it properly. He passed through the outer
vestibule between the double glass doors, and went into the night.
The man who asked the question watched him go, an expression of anxiety
momentarily in his eyes.
‘Don’t think he heard you,’ said another, laughing. ‘You’ve got to
shout to Hibbert, his mind’s so full of his work.’
‘He works too hard,’ suggested the first, ‘full of queer ideas and
dreams.’
But Hibbert’s silence was not rudeness. He had not caught the
invitation, that was all. The call of the hotel world had faded. He no
longer heard it. Another wilder call was sounding in his ears.
For up the street he had seen a little figure moving. Close against the
shadows of the baker’s shop it glided--white, slim, enticing.